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Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

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Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#611

Post by geye1234 »

ravenstine wrote: post #593
dijit wrote: post #389

OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…

I'm both glad and dismayed to hear that I'm not the only one who likens public school to prison. I went to school in California, and I would say my school experience became prison-like between grades 4 and 11. In fairness, I can now look back at my child self and realize that I was delayed in terms of emotional maturity, which contributed to my social problems, but the kind of environment I was in was the wrong one f…

This is a major reason (but far from the only reason) that we homeschool. Knowing what I know about the school system, about my own experience thereof, and about my kids' personalities, it would be grossly immoral for me to put them through it. The risk of long-term trauma would be too high.

There is some risk of their being isolated (but very low, since they are with other kids three days a week), and a slightly higher risk of missing chunks of learning (which we aim to mitigate in the obvious ways). But ultimately I'd rather my kids have a few gaps in their knowledge than be traumatized by the school system.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#612

Post by 20after4 »

tigeba wrote: post #550
20after4 wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Missouri, high-school buildings use the same blueprints as state prisons. Why bother designing something custom? They serve the same purpose. They literally are prisons. If a teenager fails to show up for school, a police officer will eventually show up to arrest their parents and place the teenager in the custody of a "foster family." Now both parent and teenager are imprisoned. And we are told this is freedom. T…

I feel I must point out that education buildings in Missouri do not share designs with prisons as a norm. Maybe this is true somewhere in the state but not here.

Yeah I didn't mean all of them. A couple of examples that I am aware of are Ozark High School and Waynesville High School.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#613

Post by BeFlatXIII »

woodruffw wrote: post #164

> These tech parents are hackers by nature, and I think they’re convinced that in homeschooling they’ve happened on the ultimate life hack: just opt out of being around average people. It's difficult to feel optimistic about a society that thinks this way, much less has a cultural and economic elite that is seemingly emboldened to think this way. "Average" people are the norm, the reality that "not average" people wi…

> Learning how to co-exist with people who aren't like you is a universally valuable experience, especially for people who would fashion themselves as "not average."

Yet it's not worth the cost of a slowed curriculum.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#614

Post by nedt »

My kid has a really hard time learning from me. It's resistance and stress for both of us. After all my role is to be a parent so naturally I'm a friend and a foe. Much more than a teacher. But I also don't have a big problem with that.

Obviously he also has his challenges in school. It's a public school but in Austria, so it ain't that bad. But there is also the saying that you aren't learning for school, you are learning for life.

So you aren't just learning for your subject, you are also learning to get along with people, how to avoid conflicts, how to manipulate a bit and how to trick some of the systems. All of that is not so much possible in homeschooling.

People do know that around here and it's more of a distrust into the system that might parents want to get their kids not taught in school in recent years, while their thinking behind the distrust does make them very bad teachers overall.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#615

Post by dijit »

ravenstine wrote: post #593
dijit wrote: post #389

OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…

I'm both glad and dismayed to hear that I'm not the only one who likens public school to prison. I went to school in California, and I would say my school experience became prison-like between grades 4 and 11. In fairness, I can now look back at my child self and realize that I was delayed in terms of emotional maturity, which contributed to my social problems, but the kind of environment I was in was the wrong one f…

I forgot about the lack of personal property.

You couldn’t really own anything and had to prepare for anything nice to be stolen, or anything they looked dear to you (even if not nice) to be destroyed.

I heard of kids having their shoes stolen, but I never had that.

I’m sorry that happened to you, I hope you are doing better now. :(

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#616

Post by froh »

triyambakam wrote: post #513
froh wrote: post #351

I find looking beyond the rim of your own plate such an inspiring thing when it comes to schooling. Germany for example prohibits home schooling. don't breed detached extremists. however Germany thinks binning kids into handcrafts, simple office jobs and academia at age nine (!) is a brilliant idea o-O. but then on the upside again, you will go to school for at least 13 years if you get _any_ kind of qualified profes…

> don't breed detached extremists. There are plenty... Who's that Nazi kid with the face tattoos? I don't remember his name.

yah, Prof. TikTok (and Dr. FB before that), personally targeting political views, that's magic. can't blame schooling for that. it's rather _despite_ schooling. and it happens worldwide (thus my wild guess about TikTok and similar media products)

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#617

Post by dani__german »

crabbone wrote: post #601
dani__german wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exclusion of "average people" is fundamentally required for private property to exist, one of Humanity's best inventions. Few people enjoy private aspects of their life out in public. It is a completely natural and morally good thing to want your own space and to raise your kids your own way. Your kids don't need to be exposed to the often violent whims of society's bottom quartile for 8 hours a day for more than a d…

You missed the point: if you don't like how school work today, you need to improve the schools. If you are saving yourself, especially before helping others (because you have the means that others probably don't), you are the bad person in this situation, and you should reflect on your ethical position some time, preferably soon.

Your suggestion that the educational system, any meaningful part of it, is welcoming of constructive criticism of any kind is not compelling. The US government has put such enterprising parents on terrorist watch lists for speaking up at school board meetings.

If a system is specifically set up against you, runs poorly, and in a real sense hates you, you have the option to let it fail without you. It is the polite, and least conflict path to leave it to its failure, and to forge your own way.

On the other hand, listening to people who tell you that you are unethical, guilty of an *ism of some kind, or bad, does not have a good track record of success. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. What you suggest is specifically not going to happen on my part.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#618

Post by ubertaco »

derektank wrote: post #374
Glyptodon wrote: post #345

It's true that there has always been a sizeable chunk of religion motivated home schoolers, historically there was a long tail with motivations and efficacy that was all over the map. One thing that's really common is for parents to try it when they feel that the local system is failing their kids in some way and the family economics supporting are acceptable. There are also many permutations - it wasn't uncommon whe…

>despite there being little to no evidence that they generate any broad improvements in the base level of education in the population at large? You don't find the experience of New Orleans following their conversion to a complete charter system in 2005 (10 percentage point gain in college acceptance rates, improvements on standardized tests by about a third of a standard deviation) to be meaningful evidence? https://…

Congratulations to Louisiana on improving from 50th-ranked state in education to...50th-ranked state in education?

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#619

Post by PaulHoule »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #231
PaulHoule wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have some friends who are Christian but left wing (their kids would come over to play and draw pictures about helping poor people.) The dad teaches CS at a small Catholic college, mom stayed home and educated their kids. The "disgust over woke issues" existed in some form 30 years ago when people were homeschooling but it had not hardened into the constellation it is in now. Back then you could get folks like that…

I miss the days when young earth fundamentalist Christianity tinged with racism was my most compelling ideological opponent.

Personally I see it as bad theology as much or more so than bad science.

I mean, how do you reconcile the idea that "God is great" (Muslim slogan but how you can not believe that as a theist?) with the idea that the world is just 6000 years old and he sits on the throne and is obsessed with Jewish people as opposed to the scientific picture that the world is at least 13 billion years old, 'his image' is inscribed into the molecular structure of our cells, which implies God is a lot bigger than that.

Re: Why is homeschooling becoming fashionable?

#620

Post by JJMcJ »

dijit wrote: post #389

OK I guess I’m going to go against the deluge of comments here; And give an appreciable reason instead of denigrating those who might choose this. The context, though, I am British. I grew up in Britain. I went to British school. I can’t speak universally about my experience, (even within all of Britain), because it’s my experience which is in one small area of the country. However, school, for me, was by far the sin…

The book Lord Of The Flies made a lot more sense when I realized it was a satire of British elite schools, rather than a real exploration of what cast away young people would actual do in that situation.
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